Roswell Fanatics

References: Sheridan and Shakespeare

Chapter 21


Sir, the scene is set, and everything is ready to
begin if you please.--
(The Critic)


Such welcome and unwelcome things at once
‘Tis hard to reconcile.
(Macbeth, IV-III)



“Alex!” I exclaimed rushing towards him just as Max wearily sank onto the abandoned chair.

It was so good to see Alex. Sane, sound and calm Alex would know what to make of these revelations. Thank god he’d arrived when he had and eased the tension with a well-timed joke. Yep, Alex would be my anchor to reality and normalcy. After the events surrounding and following my return to Roswell, I definitely craved normalcy.

“Hey Liz, Max,” Alex replied, hugging me to him.

“Alex,” Max responded, rubbing his face. “I thought you were going to be at home today?”

“Yeah, I was but I left some papers here. I didn’t know y’all would be here. Did I interrupt something?”

Before I could respond Max asked, “When did you get here?”

“Around the middle,” he replied softly looking over my head towards Max. He had a queer expression on his face. I couldn’t read it.

“Oh, so you…”

“Since senior year,” Alex said softly.

“I’m sorry,” Max exhaled avoiding looking at both of us.

“No, I….thank you,” Alex responded stepping away from me.
“It was our…it was MY fault, Alex. All of it. From beginning to end.”

“No, Max it wasn’t.” Alex said vehemently. “None of it was your fault. You can’t take responsibility for it. For her.”

I just looked at both of them as they continued to talk as I wasn’t there. I couldn’t make head or tale of what they were talking about. But whatever it was I was completely out of the loop and that wasn’t a feeling I was familiar with.

But they were still talking.

“I didn’t want you to remember any of it. I was almost too late, Alex. Anything could have happened. If Isabelle hadn’t pressed the issue, it would have been too late.”

“I remembered it later,” Alex continued his expression earnest. Crouching down in front of Max he said, “I never asked because…it was your secret to tell. You’re my friend Max, I trust you. You saved my life. None of this changes anything.”

Alex held out his hand, and after a moment’s hesitation Max shook it firmly. In front of my eyes, they reaffirmed their friendship and I felt more lost than ever.

“What happened to you Alex? When did Max save your life? Are you ok now?” I rushed out looking at my best friend with concern.

A look of dismay crossed Max’s face, just as Alex said, “I’m fine, Lizzie.”

“Now you are, but what happened? Why were you hurt? What did it have to do with Max and Isabelle?”

Irritated by their silence, I said, “Well, are you going to tell me or not! I can’t believe you’ve hidden this from me Alex. I thought you were my best friend.”

“And you,” I glared at Max, “I thought you were going to tell me the truth. Reveal everything. Is this your idea of the truth?”

“Lizzie, please,” Alex pleaded as I turned my tear filled eyes towards him. “Lizzie, we are still best friends. We always will be. I didn’t tell you about what happened because I didn’t remember most of it only bits and pieces of it. I just put it together in front of you. And as for Max, he is telling you the truth Liz, but I should tell you this part because it’s my story.”

“I just want to know what is going on Alex,” I cried hoarsely, closing my eyes to prevent the tears from rolling down my face. “I just want to understand.”

Sniffing, I spoke to Max, “I’m sorry. I know this is hard for you but it is for me too. And I just need to understand. Everything has just been so crazy and this…our meeting, it wasn’t anything like I imagined. I dreamed of it to, you know. Just like you.”

“Oh Liz,” Max said softly wrapping his arms around me. My back met his chest as he rubbed his cheek against my hair. “I’m so sorry. I would have done anything to prevent this. I didn’t want you to find out like this, but it just…”

“Don’t,” I cried gripping his wrists tightly, “tell me now. Please.”

Max dropped a kiss against my hair before gently sliding his hands away.

“Why don’t we sit down?” He said to Alex, guiding me towards a chair. “This will take a while. Are you up to it?”

“Yeah,” Alex replied firmly his voice steady. “It’s time.”

****************************************

(Flashback Senior Year)

Alexander Charles Whitman walked jauntily into school on the first day of the senior year. He and Maria had talked to Liz last night and it had been a great conversation. She seemed so happy it went a long way to relieve their anxiety.

Well Maria’s anxiety more like, Alex snorted. He had always known Lizzie would have a marvelous time in England. Oxford sounded great, just the kind of place she’d feel at home. He knew better than most, maybe even better than Maria how desperately Liz had wanted to strike out on her own. Underneath that science loving calm exterior, Liz was an adventurer and this was the perfect opportunity for her to shape up to be whoever she was most happy being. It was time to find out who Liz Parker really was, away from the prying and concerned eyes of her family and friends.

His cheerful blue eyes gleamed with excitement as he thought of his opportunity to go to Sweden. He had wanted to leave last year but with Liz leaving, he hadn’t wanted to leave Maria alone. But this year, this year Maria was set, and he was free to be a man of the world.

He was doing well in school, his study abroad program had been approved, and he had great new friends. Yes sir, it was going to be a wonderful year.



“Hey Max!” Alex called out to his chemistry lab partner making his way to their table.

The painfully shy senior flashed a smile before mumbling a greeting in response. They got on well, he and Max. They had been unwittingly paired together both trying to avoid their assigned lab partners. Alex trying to hide from Martin Shore’s smell and laziness just as Max stealthily avoided Pam Troy’s grasping hands. They’d hidden in the back of the class-room. Each had been surprised to see the other practically hiding underneath the table in their desperation. Drawn together by their mutual desperation they had swiftly paired up and by the time Mr. Seligman had entered they were setting up their lab experiments with the ease of long-time partners.

“How’s it going man?” Alex said pulling out his notebook and pen, chuckling.

“Not bad,” Max replied quietly. “What’s funny?”

“Oh, I was just thinking of when we hid in the back together. It was destined my friend that the two of us should respond to our instinct for self-preservation in the exact same way.”

“Yeah,” Max grinned. The smile transformed his entire face and chemistry class’ female population almost swooned in delight. Max Evans the hottest, most mysterious boy on campus was smiling. It was a rare sighting and those who’d seen it like the flash of a brilliant rainbow would lord it over the rest of their friends for the rest of the day.

While they were comparing chemistry notes, Alex said, “Don’t look now but that new girl is staring at you. Again.”

“Who?” Max asked surprised. He was just so invisible. Hiding behind the tree forever as his guidance counselor had admonished.

“Whatsherface!”

“That’s real specific Alex,” he shot back.

“What does she look like?” Max asked fighting against the sinking feeling in his stomach. Please don’t let it be her, please don’t let it be her he prayed to any and all the gods in the pantheon. She gave him the creeps. No, that wasn’t right. He didn’t know how he felt around her and that unsettled him even more. Why couldn’t she find someone else to stare at, he fumed.

And talking to his siblings about it hadn’t helped at all. Isabelle didn’t think it was strange. She thought he was imagining things. He’d talked to Michael about it as well, who had been immediately suspicious as he was of everything but that hadn’t helped either. If anything, it made Max feel even more…targeted, hunted.

“Max! Hey Max!” Alex elbowed him sharply pulling him out of his dark thoughts.

“What?”

“Lab’s cancelled. Seligman’s off and they haven’t found a sub yet.”

“Oh, ok,” Max replied relieved that he wouldn’t have to bear her staring any longer than necessary.

Gathering his books, he bent down to pick up his back pack and asked Alex, “Is she still there?”

Alex looked around quickly, to check but creepy girl wasn’t anywhere in sight. “Nope, coast is clear.”

Max straightened and brushed his hair out of his face. “So, what are you up to now?”

“I think Maria’s free now so we were gonna hook up in the band room and practice the new song.”

Max nodded. Of course, Alex and Maria were nearly always together. He envied their friendship, the ease of their conversation. Granted he had Isabelle and Michael and his parents but sometimes he just felt like talking to other people. He liked Alex. He even liked Maria. She was a little strange but fun. Thinking about it, he wondered if maybe they wouldn’t mind if he hung out with them sometimes.

“Hey, Alex would you mind if…”

“Max why don’t you…” they began simultaneously then grinned.

“You first,” Max said cringing from making the first move. God knew he had to take the lead in every other sphere of their lives, would it be so terrible for someone else to go first this time!

“I was just saying, if you weren’t doing anything, you could hang out with us,” Alex rushed out. Yes, he and Max were lab partners and they talked but that was in class. Maybe, they could hang out outside of class as well.

Noting Max’s indecision he plugged on, “Maria was asking about you. Said she hadn’t seen you in a while. She might get worried and you know what she’s like when she get’s worried,” Alex teased amused at Max’s expression.

“Ok. I don’t think I could survive another Maria worry session,” Max replied thinking about the last time Maria had been worried about him as they walked together towards the band room.

It had been when the dreams first started. They had seemed so strange at first. And they had freaked him out because he could never remember what happened in them. As a result he’d stopped sleeping at night, afraid to dream. Afraid if it was yet another indication of his alien-ness. He hadn’t even been able to talk to him mother about them. It just seemed so weak, so silly to be afraid. But he had been. And Maria, of all the people in the world, had noticed his abstraction and his fatigue.

He had only talked to her a half a dozen times but when she’d ambushed him in the quad, asking him about the dark circles underneath his eyes and tried to inflict cypress oil on him he had been completely taken aback. He hadn’t known that she cared. But she had because he was Alex’s friend and by association he was her friend. She told him to take care of himself, patted him on the head and had left him stunned in the middle of lunch break. Yep, Maria Deluca on the warpath could be very fierce. He appreciated the fact that she noticed and cared. It was enough to know.

The dreams had continued, their frequency and intensity had increased to a point where he had nearly drowned himself in a gallon of cypress oil. He would have done anything to take his mind off their strangeness. But it was on one sleepless night that it occurred to Max maybe this was a manifestation of alien maturity. And even if it wasn’t, he couldn’t avoid sleeping forever. Alien or not he needed sleep.

At five that evening, Max walked into his bedroom having told his mother that he was taking a nap. The exhaustion on his face forestalled her concern. Max anchored his consciousness to the sound of his mother’s voice in den. He knew it would at least be another three hours before she came to wake him up for dinner. That gave him plenty of time.

Settling on his bed in a pair of old boxers and a worn t-shirt Max prepared to sleep. His eyelids fluttered shut and his breathing evened out a few minutes after his head hit the pillow.

It was time to explore the dreamscape.

Chapter 22


"Ay, now the plot thickens very much upon us."
Buckingham: The Rehearsal



(Flashback Senior Year)


Maria sat humming in the band room. Her bare legs were swinging against the desk, keeping time with her head-shake. All of a sudden her voice rose in pitch and sound. Its purity filled the room and the walls vibrated with its resonance. Her face always so vivacious looked almost serene when she reached the highest note and stopped. The single solitary note quivered in the thrumming band room and ever so gently floated to the ground.

“So that’s what an orgasm feels like!”

Startled Maria almost tumbled off the desk. “Alex! Shit!” She yelled.

“Are you ok?” Max asked rushing to her side. He gently turned her arm to see if it was bruised where she’d banged it against the desk.

“I’m fine, Max. Thank you for asking,” Maria smiled at the good-looking senior. Yeah, just yummy. It was a pity he wasn’t her type and had already pegged him for Liz, no matter what she had to say about it.

Straightening, she walked up to a grinning Alex, and smacked him hard.

“Was it good for you big boy? ‘Cause that’s as close as you’re gonna get to one,” she said evilly.

“Maria, don’t say that,” Alex whined. “You know when you say things like that they come true,” he said uneasily, quite positive that if anyone had the power to cast jinxes it was her.

“Sorry, it’s said now. If I were you I’d name your hand as well,” she smirked just as Alex turned a bright red and Max laughed behind his hand.

“Now Max, on the other hand,”

“Umm, no, we are not going to talk about Max,” Max said quickly. The last thing he needed was Maria trying to set him up. It was bad enough that that new girl was stalking him. The last thing he needed was to hide from someone else.

“Of course we are going to talk about Max,” Maria replied sunnily, amused at his discomfort. He really was too cute for words and such a nice guy as well. It had been a little weird to see him and Alex hanging out and to hear Alex talk about him. But she could see why. He reminded her of Lizzie in some ways, and it was so obvious that he needed friends aside from that horrible Guerin and his deep-frozen sister.

“Maria, when do you want to have band practice?” Alex broke in hastily, recognizing the signs of Maria on a mission.

“I have to work tonight and tomorrow,” she said thoughtfully giving Max one more searching look before turning to Alex. “Let’s have it on Friday and Saturday. You want to come?”

“Who me?” Max said surprised by the offer.

“Yeah, you should be super flattered because no outsiders are allowed to attend band practice but we really need an honest opinion on our new set. How about it?”

“Umm, are you sure?” He asked looking at Alex for help.

“Yeah, totally man.”

“Umm, ok,” he agreed.

“Great,” Maria said, “oh and after band practice we have movie and ice cream night on Friday nights. My house this week.”

“I…”

“What you have plans this weekend?” she asked curiously.

“I…” Max stumbled over his excuse just as Alex mimed no behind Maria’s back.

“No, I don’t.”

“Great, see you then. Let’s go have lunch,” and with that she threaded her arm through his and dragged them both to the cafeteria.

*********************

(A month later)

“Mom?” Max called out.

“In the kitchen, honey,” Diane Evans’ voice floated into the dining room.

“Maria and Alex are coming over tonight. You remember right?” he said walking into the kitchen to find his mother and Michael elbow deep in flour and some kind of pastry sheet.

“Michael?” He said looking surprised.

“What?”

“Since when do you cook?” Max asked as his brother rolled out something that looked like dough very gently. It was strange to see his capable and well, violent, hands do something so delicate.

“Michael’s been cooking for a while honey. It’s very relaxing. You know that key lime pie you ate alone?” Diane said rolling her eyes at his infamous sweet-tooth.

Max had the grace to blush before saying, “What? It was great pie.”

“Michael made it,” she said proudly looking at her other son.

They were so different like night and day. Max was sensitive on the outside tempered by steel within. Michael was iron on the outside but soft like a marshmallow from within. Of course, he’d die if she ever said anything like that to him and it would make him uncomfortable. That was the last thing she wanted to do. It had taken him such a long time to feel secure here and make a home with them. It had taken him even longer to call her mom, well, he still didn’t she amended silently. He called her M and Philip D. It was so like him brusque, to the point and different. But then he was different, not a child of her soul like Max, or a child of her heart like Izzy but a child of both – heart, soul and an iron will that unlike him she concealed so well.

“Really?” Max was saying surprised.

“You needn’t sound so surprised, Maxwell. You ate it in one sitting,” Michael grunted his mouth quirking at the corner as he focused his attention on spooning the chocolate and strawberry mixture into the pie plate. Another moment was given to fluting pie corners before he slid it into the oven.

Stretching his arms in the air, he cracked his back. “That feels good. Why are you hanging out with those losers Maxwell?”

Sighing Diane turned around to see how Max fielded that question. She knew how much fun he had with both Alex and Maria. She had even seen Izzy hang out with them occasionally, when she was sure no one could catch her. She needed to talk to her fashion conscious daughter one of those days about lasting relationships. Michael on the other hand, was entirely self-sufficient, he spent most of his time painting, or cooking or reading about cooking. She really didn’t think he had any friends in school. But then, he seemed not to want or need friends but he did have a lot of girlfriends. A new one every two weeks or so and there was never any bitterness or anger about the previous one. He had never brought them home, but she and Phillip weren’t blind. He was a good-looking boy so it wasn’t very surprising. Max on the other hand…

“They are my friends, Michael,” Max replied calmly, eating chocolate chips out of the bag in front of him. “I like them. We hang out.”

“Is Maria in one of your classes?” She asked Max. That was one the first times he had ever mentioned a girl.

“Mom,” he groaned.

“Yeah, Max, do you like Maria?” Michael grinned slyly. “You know M I don’t think he’s ever brought a girl home before.”

Fighting against grinning, she said, “You’re right sweetie. Are you and Maria going out?”

“Mom, please,” Max blushed. The tips of his ears turned red. This was not happening. He’d kill Michael for this.

“She’s cute, M,” Michael supplied helpfully as Max glared at him. “Blonde hair, big green eyes. Talks a lot though, but since Max here doesn’t they are all set.”

“She sounds very nice,” Diane replied, ignoring Michael’s blatant needling. They were siblings after all letting a golden opportunity for embarrassment and teasing slide past was just unthinkable.

“What’s her name?”

“Maria,” Max replied evading the answer. The last thing he needed was for his mother to make Maria uncomfortable or suggest that he was interested in her that way. He wasn’t. Besides, he had someone, already.

“Deluca,” Michael supplied again.

“Oh, is that Amy Deluca’s daughter? Amy is such a wonderful woman. I’m sure her daughter must be lovely as well.”

“Mom, I’m not dating Maria,” Max finally mumbled, wanting to stop his mother before she picked out their wedding china.

“Why?”

“Yeah, why not Max?” Michael echoed enjoying Max’s embarrassment even more.

“I’m going to kill you Michael!” Max growled.

“Yeah, well I’ll have Izzy give you nightmares!” He shot back.

“She’ll have to get in first,” Max scowled.

Knowing full well that they could keep at it once they started Diane simply let the conversation go for the time being. Talking over their increasing lurid threats she said, “Max, I’ve made snacks for your friends. Dad and I are going out for dinner so make sure Alex and Maria have dinner before leaving.”

“Michael, stop picking on him and please clean the kitchen.”

Dropping a quick kiss on Michael’s cheek and smoothing back Max’s disheveled hair she sailed out of the kitchen.

*********************

(Alex’s going away party)

“C’mon Whitman, you are telling me that your host family has a hot blonde daughter named Leana and you just want to be friends with her?” Michael chortled above the loud party music at the Crashdown.

“I’m going there to study Michael, not shack up with a blonde,” Alex replied primly.

“Dude, even you can’t be such a big dork. The whole purpose of a study abroad is to screw around. You’ve been spending too much time with Maxwell the Saint.”

“Well, I think he just fell from sainthood,” Alex said disbelievingly.

“What? Where?” Michael asked looking around.

Alex grasped his elbow and pointed to a corner across the room where Max and Tess Harding were plastered together.

“I didn’t even know he was dating her,” Alex murmured stunned at the display.

“It was a couple of weeks ago.”

“But what about the creepy factor or you know, how she’s not his type?” Alex persisted.

“Well, from here it looks like she is his type,” Michael replied unconcernedly. But when Alex continued to look horrified, he added, “She and Iz are good friends. She came by the house a couple of times. I guess they hit it off.”

“She’s Isabelle’s friend?” Alex repeated.

“Yeah,” Michael replied laconically and then his expression changed to dismay. “Fuck!”

“Wha…” Alex started just a Maria barreled into them.

Hands fisted on her hips, chest heaving she was on her way into a fine temper.

“What the hell is Max doing with that…that…bleached skank?”

When neither Michael nor Alex answered, she prodded Michael’s chest, “Well? You’re his brother explain this extended moment of insanity to me?”

“Dunno.”

“Dunno, what the hell does dunno mean?” She shrieked drawing the attention of couples nearby.

“Maria, people are looking,” Alex said helplessly trying to stop the avalanche but realizing that it was too late.

“Big deal! I asked you a question Guerin, what is he doing with that slut and if you don’t give me an answer right now I will kick your ass!” Maria growled, her eyes flashing with ire.

“She’s Izzy’s friend. They hit it off. They’re dating.” Michael answered quickly just as he edged away from her fists.

“Oh, are they indeed?” She snarled, “Well, we’ll just see about that.” Turning on her heel she stalked towards Max and Tess, while Alex and Michael fell behind her.

“Hey Max!” Maria said softly, tapping his shoulder.

“Maria!” He replied drawing away from Tess with some effort. Her arms tightened around his neck for a second before they fell away. Shaking his head against the heat and sudden dizziness – he looked around feeling disoriented for a minute.

“You ok, man?” Michael asked quietly clasping Max’s shoulder steadily.

“Huh, yeah fine. Sorry, it’s just kind of hot,” Max mumbled. He felt so strange. Light-headed. Grateful for Michael’s steadying hand on his shoulder he blinked and fell into Tess’ blue eyes. Why was she here? He felt so….

“You don’t look so hot girlfriend, why don’t we go outside?” Maria said turning him away from Tess and leading him towards the front door.

“See you later, Bess.”

“It’s Tess,” the blonde replied smiling sweetly, her blue eyes focused on Max.

“Whatever, move!” Michael snorted moving behind Max, cutting off her view.

“You want to dance, Alex?” Tess flirted stroking her finger tips down Alex’s arm. He looked completely absorbed in her. She just needed another minute but…

“Sorry, Tessie, Alex is coming with us,” Maria replied smartly dragging him away.

Fuck, Tess growled internally. Maria had over-reached her annoyance quota. She was definitely going to get what was coming to her. She wasn’t too worried about Alex. Things were going according to plan. He’d been so excited about helping her in computer class because his precious Isabelle had asked him. Please, she snorted, as if the ice princess cared, but still the translation was coming along nicely.

Max, was another issue altogether. He had been a little resistant in the beginning but once she had dream-walked him with Isabelle’s help, and tapped into his brain – things had begun to look a lot easier. He seemed predisposed to a mental connection. His neural pathways were already developed for a mental and emotional link.

In fact, she had just tapped into the one already in place. After that, well, getting close to Max was much easier, she smiled to herself. It had been like taking candy from a baby.

*********************

part of a much longer chapter - broken into sections. I'm not too happy with how it transition's from the last one - so, if it doesn't make sense let me know. You won't get to see Max's dreamscape....just yet!

Chapter 23



“Ay, now the plot thickens very much upon us.”
(Buckingham: The Rehearsal)



(From part 22)

Max, was another issue altogether. He had been a little resistant in the beginning but once she had dream-walked him with Isabelle’s help, and tapped into his brain – things had begun to look a lot easier. He seemed predisposed to a mental connection. His neural pathways were already developed for a mental and emotional link.

In fact, she had just tapped into the one already in place. After that, well, getting close to Max was much easier, she smiled to herself. It had been like taking candy from a baby.


********************


Max stepped out into the cool night air and took a long, deep breath. The Crashdown had been suffocatingly hot and crowded. It made him nervous. He hated not being able to protect his back, and even more, not being able to locate exits. That was Michael’s training talking.

“…what is up with the barracuda?” that was Maria, Max realizing that he’d missed a chunk of the conversation around him.

Alex elbowed him sharply.

“What?”

“Now, is not a good time to space out, buddy! Maria is pissed and she…uh-oh,” Alex muttered under his breath.

“Well girlfriend? What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I…umm…” Max stammered thinking frantically if he had committed any major transgressions during the past few hours. Not remembering any, he smiled apologetically, “sorry?”

“No, not sorry, Max. I want to know what the hell you were doing! I mean, what were you think letting that…that…tramp drool all over you? I thought we’d agreed that psychotic creepy blondes weren’t your type and that you weren’t interested in dating.”

“Dating?” He repeated dumbly.

Oh shit! Maria was pissed about Tess. All of a sudden he couldn’t remember why he hadn’t told her or Alex about it. He’d just been so relieved that Isabelle and Michael approved, that they’d found their fourth. But deep down he knew that it didn’t matter what his siblings thought, or who she was.

He had found her.

At long last. She was here. With him.

But he’d sound like a fool if he admitted that. She was his secret. He was hers. No one else needed to know about their connection.

But there were more important things to worry about, right now. Like Maria’s demand for answers. A quick glance at Alex and Michael told him that he was strictly on his own.

Opening his mouth to defend himself, Max caught sight of Isabelle heading his way and decided to hold his breath.

“Yes, dating?” Maria repeated intently.

“You know, it isn’t much of a party if the guest of honor and the hosts disappear,” Isabelle said loudly walking towards them.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Alex replied carefully avoiding looking at Isabelle. “I just needed some air, you know, and of course my magnetic personality brought the rest of them out behind me.”

Michael snickered. “Magnetic?”

Isabelle rolled her eyes. Honestly, sometimes she wondered why she even bothered to put up with her brothers. And ever since Michael had started hanging out with Alex he’d become even worse. So not funny!

“Whatever.” Turning her attention to Max she said, “What did you say to Tess? She came up to me looking really upset. Said you ditched her, or should I say,” rounding on Maria, “Maria dragged you away in the middle of the dance.”

“She practically molested him on the dance floor, Isabelle,” Maria snapped her eyes flashing. Oh, she was so not in the mood to take crap from the ice princess.

“And I doubt Bess has any feelings to get hurt!”

Michael looked at both of them and stepped away. This was going to be fun.

“Her name is TESS,” Isabelle spoke calmly, icicles dripping from her voice. “She’s really nice and one of my friends. So maybe you could just get over yourself and let Max hang out with her. Besides, the last time I checked you weren’t his sister or his keeper. So really, it’s none of your business.”

Ouch, Alex winced. That was just brutal. He could almost see steam coming out of Maria’s ears. The second that it took for him to debate the merits of mediating between the two, was too long. Maria had already jumped in claws drawn.

“It is most certainly my business, because Max is my friend. It figures that you’d have a bitch for a friend who creeps out your brother completely and not notice it at all.”

Isabelle flushed. Pleased with her reaction Maria moved in for the kill.

“Considering how well you’ve done as his sister, I don’t think he needs another one in his life!”

Alex’s mouth fell open, while Michael and Max shared stunned looks. This was not good. Soooo not good.

“How dare you?” Isabelle hissed her hands clenched tightly. “He’s my brother. I know what he wants and what makes him happy. Tess makes him happy. Ask him if you aren’t convinced. Anyway,” she smiled thinly admiring her nails, “What would you know about family – considering you don’t have any?”

“Isabelle, enough!” Max’s voice cracked through the silence like a gunshot.

Pushing Michael towards a trembling Maria, he stood in front of his sister. His eyes blazed with fury. “Apologise.”

“What?” She shrieked her deliberate calm in tatters.

“I said, apologise to Maria. NOW,” Max ground out seething. Isabelle looked disbelievingly at him and then at Michael whose narrow eyed annoyance contrasted with the soothing hand he stroked down Maria’s arm.

“I won’t.” Isabelle replied defiantly. She met her brother’s hot gaze unflinchingly and thought maybe…just maybe she might have overstepped…but no. “You can’t make me.”

Clamping a hand on her upper arm, Max dragged her away from the others towards the Crashdown doors. She dug her heels into the ground, but he pulled her along with ease. Sometimes, she forgot how strong Max was.

She struggled against his iron-grip, knowing he was leaving bruises. If she asked, he’d let her go. But she couldn’t. Pride wouldn’t let her.

Max let go of her so abruptly that she almost fell down. Biting down the tears she glared at him. Anger etched in every bone and muscle.

“Don’t ever talk to my friends like that again Isabelle,” he said softly ignoring her outrage. “Now, leave. I don’t want to talk to you.”

Wearily he watched her stomp towards the Crashdown. Why couldn’t she be nicer? Even now, after their parents knowing the truth, of not hiding, she was still so sensitive….overbearing, even. He worried about her. He loved her, but sometimes she just made it so difficult.

“Isabelle,”

She stiffened.

“Don’t test my resolve on this,” and without waiting for her response, Max walked back to his friends.



“Don’t mind Iz. She speaks bitch fluently,” Michael said looking at the top of Maria’s head. He was no good with girls who cried. Well, that wasn’t true. Exactly. He was better at tears than the wave of hurt emanating from Maria.

Alex looked on helplessly. Maria wouldn’t let them hug her or anything. It was only by sheer force of will that they’d managed to stop her from leaving.

“Ria,” Max said softly kneeling in front of her to make eye contact.

“I’m sorry for Isabelle. I don’t have any excuses for her behavior. She was completely out of line and I told her that. She won’t bother you again.”

Maria remained silent her green eyes dull with hurt.

“I…”

“Don’t apologise, Max,” she said finally acknowledging his earnest face and words. “It’s not your fault that she is…”

“PMsing constantly,” Michael suggested.

Ignoring the interruption, Maria said, “that she is what she is. And unless you intend to propose to me you should get up, ‘cause I’d hate to say no to a guy on his knees.”

“Maria…” Max huffed out a laugh standing up.

“It’s ok Max. It really is. I don’t like her. She doesn’t like me. We’ll hate each other from our separate corners. Besides, I’m Teflon.”

“Can I…” he gestured widely.

In a flurry of movement Maria flung herself into his arms. “I thought you’d never ask. You give the best hugs.” Max hugged her tightly. He was grateful for their presence and friendship in his life.

They made him -- all of them -- human.

“Now, what’s up with you and Tess?” Maria questioned.

Seeing his startled expression, she grinned. “Surely, you didn’t think I’d let your sister distract me from the most important thing.”

Max smiled wryly. If Maria was still interested in his social life then things were going to be fine. How she’d react to his dating Tess was a whole other issue altogether.

“How about we talk tomorrow?”

“Oh, no,” Maria replied firmly. “That is the lamest avoidance tactic ever. Right, Alex?”

“Absolutely, Ria. I think Max here is trying to wriggle out of telling us the story.”

“No, I’m not,” Max’s face heated. “We’ll talk tomorrow at school.”

Seeing Maria’s disbelieving look, he added, “I swear. Would I lie to the people who know where I live?”

“You better not,” Alex quipped. “Ve haf our vays of getting information!”

“Idiot,” Maria quibbled good-naturedly. “Fine, tomorrow. Or, your cute ass is mine.”


********************


“So what gives?” Alex asked cheerfully flinging himself on the bench.

“Nothing much,” Max replied, pulling out his lunch slowly. “What do you have?”

“Tuna salad sandwich, cheesy Doritos, an apple and chocolate milk. You?”

“Some kind of Greek salad with bread, cake, and chocolate milk.”

“I’ll trade you my sandwich for the salad and bread,” Alex said thinking quickly. Tuna salad three days in a row got kinda crazy.

“Ok,” Max replied enthusiastically, “but the ummm…salad’s got fruit and stuff in it. My mom got carried away.”

“Sounds good. Give it over,” Alex slid over his sandwich and dived into the salad. “This is good.”

“So’s this,” Max said with his mouth full. Thank god for Alex and lunch swapping otherwise he’d either starve to death or be dead broke because of his mom’s cooking.

“Hi guys! Can I just tell you that Mrs. Suarez is a pain in the ass. She’s so gonna flunk me in Spanish. I should have just taken Italian with that cutie new teacher, but not I had to be stupid and get stuck in the freak’s class. Ugh. I hate my life. Ooh, is that cake?” Maria said swiping Max’s cake off his plate.

“I thought you were on a diet?”

“If I see anymore tofu, I’m gonna scream,” she shot back, before inhaling the cake’s buttery sweetness. “Can you believe my mom bought tofu-cheesecake last night?”

“Maria, I’m trying to eat,” Max groaned.

“Bet it tasted like snot!” Alex mumbled through a mouthful of mango and chocolate milk.

“Eew. Disgusting!” Maria twitched. “Anyway, tell me about Tess?”

“Nothing to tell,” Max replied calmly.

“Girlfriend, don’t even get me started on how wrong that statement is. What gives? Spit it out…pronto.”

Taking in Max’s silence she threatened, “You don’t want to piss off a starving Deluca who has had to eat Tofu. So spill.”

“Umm, she’s nice…No just listen first,” Max said hurriedly forestalling Maria’s flood of words.

“I know, I said that she was a little strange…”

“Creepy,” “Stalker material,” Maria and Alex chimed simultaneously.

“Yeah, well, she isn’t any of those things. She’s just really shy. Isabelle hangs out with her and at first I was a little…worried…but then I talked to her and she’s nice. She told me she was sorry for staring at me, but it was because she really liked me. She was just too scared to come up and talk,” Max laughed softly, amazed that someone could actually find him intimidating. Or that he could find someone even shyer than he was.

Forget about a tree, Tess had been hiding behind a whole forest.

“Hullo, earth to Max,” Alex snapped his fingers in front of Max’s face.

“Oh, sorry,” he replied sheepishly. “Anyway, so we talked a bit. And we have a lot of stuff in common. Do you know she was adopted just like we were?” He said leaning forward.

“Sweetie, just because someone is adopted doesn’t mean they’re gonna be your best-friends,” Maria said breaking his mood.

“I know, Maria. Look, I know what I said – and it was really stupid of me to judge her before talking to her. But we have stuff in common and we talk. It’s like I know her. She feels familiar, Maria.”

Looking at both his friends, he urged, “I really like her, Maria. Something inside me recognized her and responded to it.”

After a moment, Alex asked uncertainly, “Does she feel the same way?”

“Yes,” Max replied emphatically.

Maria’s frown deepened. There was something very odd about this set up. She just couldn’t put her finger on it. It wasn’t like Max to be so vocal about his feelings, especially girls. And he seemed to like this one really quickly. For people who’d been going out for only a couple of weeks, they were really physically comfortable. Ugh. She suppressed a quick shiver of revulsion at the thought. Nasty.

Tess wasn’t shy. Shy girls didn’t hide behind plunging cleavages. Shy girls didn’t stalk boys. Nope, there was something just fishy there. How could Max date Isabelle’s friend? He didn’t like the girls she hung out with. AND…and she was blonde. He’d told her he didn’t go for blondes.

“Maria?” the soft voice broke through her dark thoughts. This was Max, her sweet friend Max who was looking for her approval. She knew he wanted her to befriend Tess. He wanted all of them to get along.

Like Hell.

But she didn’t have to tell him that. She could just puzzle this out on her own. It was much more important to not hurt or upset Max.

“Ouch,” she griped as Alex’s foot connected with her ankle.

“Maria, if you don’t like her….” Max said sadly, shuttering his pleading eyes.

“Oh for the love of God, I like her, ok. I’m happy for you. Just put the eyes away,” she said dramatically.

“I’ll do anything just don’t give me puppy-dog eyes ok!” Alex and Max laughed at her antics.

But then a little more seriously, “Are you really? Happy, I mean?” Max stumbled.

“Look, she’s not my favorite person ok. I might like her a little more than your sister. But,” Max looked a little more hopeful, “but if you like her and she makes you happy, I’ll get over it.”

“Thanks Maria. You are the best!” Max exclaimed before dashing off just as the bell for class rang.

“Yeah,” she replied. “What do you think?” gathering her things for class.

Alex adjusted his backpack once, before they walked out of the quad together. “I don’t know.”

********************

Thank you for all your fabulous feedback. My connection is a bit spotty so I haven't had a chance to respond in detail, once its on the go...I'll post my responses. As always, I love to hear from all of you.

Cheers to old readers and welcome to all the new ones.

*********************

Chapter 24


“Ay, now the plot thickens very much upon us.”
(Buckingham: The Rehearsal)


(From part 23)

Max tells Alex and Maria about Tess and his feelings for her:

“Look, she’s not my favorite person ok. I might like her a little more than your sister. But,” Max looked a little more hopeful, “but if you like her and she makes you happy, I’ll get over it.”

“Thanks Maria. You are the best!” Max exclaimed before dashing off just as the bell for class rang.

“Yeah,” she replied. “What do you think?” gathering her things for class.

Alex adjusted his backpack once, before they walked out of the quad together. “I don’t know.”

********************


(Las Cruces)

“000111000111000111000111000111000111000111000111000111000111000111000111000,” Alex mumbled under his breath.

It could be done.

The whole thing was easy as pie, really. Once you figured out what needed to be done.

But it could be done, as easy as pie.

00011100011100011100011100011100011100…

“Hey Alex!” The sweet voice broke his concentration.

He turned away from the computer, grimacing. He didn’t get visitors very often. Well, he had been very busy since he’d come to Sweden. Things had just been snowballing. Not quite the relaxing study abroad he’d been thinking about. Oh well.

Blinking he tried to shift his attention from the translation project to the girl standing in the doorway.

The blonde ringlets and cerulean eyes swept in and out of focus for a second. He rubbed his blurry blood-shot eyes again. But that didn’t help. His eyes watered with the effort but he didn’t recognize her.

He blinked away the tears, almost missing the unpleasant look marring her features before she was back to her smiling self.

She did look really familiar. Before he could embarrass her by asking for an introduction, or was it a re-introduction (?) she spoke up.

“It’s Leanna, silly!”

********************

(The Evans’ home)

“Max!” Michael shouted walking in through the front door.

“Maxwell! Ma!”

“In here, honey,” Diane called out from the kitchen.

Passing a sofa, Michael flung his bag on it and walked into the kitchen where his mother was reading a paperback.

“How was art class?” She asked, book-marking her page before closing the book.

“It wasn’t bad,” Michael replied sticking his head in the fridge. “You want some lemonade?”

“Iced tea please, dear. Why wasn’t it good?”

“Acrylics aren’t my style. They flake off too easily,” he replied pouring his mother a glass of iced tea. He reached for the tobasco…

“It already has some. So, is it the medium that’s the trouble?”

“Yeah, kinda,” he sipped some of his drink. “I’m thinking of switching to sculpting and working with clay.”

“That sounds nice. Why were you looking for Max?”

“Huh? Oh, Izz needed him to pick her up from the reservation.”

Noting his mother’s questioning gaze he continued, “They are having some kind of jewellery and pottery display. She wanted to check it out. You know Izzy…she’s a consumer!”

Diane laughed recognizing the truth behind Michael’s sarcasm.

“Well, I can honestly say that she gets that from Philip. I have never known a man who positively enjoys shopping as much as he does.”

Michael snorted. It was a running joke in the house that if Philip passed a shop he simply had to go inside it and wouldn’t leave until he’d bought something. Izzy was the same. It drove their mother crazy.

“Well, Max should be back from his run in about an hour. He can go after, or I can go get her.”

Diane fell silent for a minute before continuing tentatively, “Michael?”

“Yeah,”

“Have you noticed anything different about Max lately?”

A faint sense of self-preservation and dormant instinct of danger reared its head. Maria had been talking his ear off about how something wasn’t right with Max. How he did little things that seemed out of character. But he hadn’t paid any attention to her. What did she know? She was just Maria.

But a faint voice inside him had chided: she is also his friend…maybe even his best friend. When was the last time you sat down and talked to him the way she does on a regular basis?

He had shrugged the thought off irritably. He wasn’t his brother’s keeper.

Oh but you are, the tinny voice of responsibility and duty grew louder. You are his brother, his keeper. You are his second.

No, this was a different life. They weren’t at all bound by the same duties and responsibilities as the last time. This was a different life. It was a different planet. He was a different man.

Maybe, the small voice never faltered, but then why did you push Tess forward?

I didn’t, he rallied silently, oblivious to his mother’s concerned looks. I didn’t push her. Isabelle pushed her. Isabelle made friends with her. I didn’t do anything.

EXACTLY! The word thundered in his head. You didn’t do anything. You didn’t offer any advice or opinion, or anything. You contributed nothing. As his brother, wasn’t it your responsibility to talk to him about it at least?

He never came to me for advice!

Really, the faint tinge of amusement made him uncomfortable. As true as that might be, but did you even listen to him?

I…

“Michael?”

Wrenched out of his internal dialogue, Michael looked into his mother’s concerned brown eyes. And it struck him….she was worried, really worried.

“Sorry.”

Getting a hold of himself he asked, “What’s different about Max?”

Diane stared into her glass, as if trying to decipher her children’s fortune.

“He seems withdrawn, so much more quiet than usual. He’s pale. He doesn’t have that healthy glow.”

“Ma,”

“A mother notices these things, honey. I don’t expect you to look at him the same way I do. But please, don’t discount what I am saying.”

“Ok,” he forced himself do drink. This was just… “What else?”

Sighing, Diane continued. “I know that you and Max don’t need much sleep, not like Izzy, but I don’t think he’s been sleeping more than two to three hours every night. I’ve seen him wandering around the house at three or four in the morning. And then,”

Diane weighed her words carefully. This was the main point of her talk and she needed Michael to be open to it.

“Yeah?”

“And then, there is that girl he’s been dating. I know that she’s one of you. And I know how happy you all were and how important it was to find her but still…I don’t like her,” she rushed out.

There, she’d said it.

********************

“Leanna?” Alex repeated dazedly.

She looked really familiar. Well, she should since he’d met her before.

Yeah, but…his mind strained to make the connection. She looked like someone he knew. Someone he knew from somewhere else. Not in Sweden. But…maybe…at home.

He squinted at her again, as she made herself comfortable on his bed.

It seemed like she visited him often enough. She looked pretty comfy on his bed. Like she’d been there before, the refrain ran through his head.

But he just couldn’t remember who she reminded him of.

“I figured you’d be hungry so I brought you Thai food,” Leanna said ignoring his confusion and opening the carryout bags on the bed. She pulled out some plastic utensils and waved at him.

“Well aren’t you going to eat?”

“I don’t…”

Her voice changed. “Alex I want you to come eat. You are hungry. Aren’t you feeling hungry?”

Abruptly he realized that he was starving. Scrambling to sit on the bed, he said, “Thai food, my favorite. I’m famished.”

“That’s what I thought,” her tinkling laugh echoed like ice cubes in a glass.

“So how’s the project doing?”

“I…” he stopped again, his mouth full of ginger-pineapple chicken.

What project was she talking about? He didn’t have any…a sharp tug pulled on his mind. He almost choked on the chicken. It had been for a flash of a second but the pain. The pain reverberated in all his nerve-endings.

“Alex, tell me about the project.” The voice sharpened like a scalpel.

He tried to reply but the pain under his brow and in his eye socket and under his ear grew unbearable. He could feel his blood vessels constricting, preventing the flow of blood. It kept accumulating in those three spots until he felt his head would explode in a shower of blood, bone and grist.

“Does your head hurt?” She asked gently, except with each word the pain grew more. It grew bigger. It became a malevolent entity in its own right.

His head was locked in place. He couldn’t chew or swallow. His eyes stretched open and the eye balls grew so dry that they almost fell out of their sockets.

“If you tell me about the Destiny Book I can make it go away.”

The sweet voice grew sweeter and the pain grew sharper.

“You want me to take away the pain don’t you, Alex?”

He wanted to nod. He wanted to whimper. To speak, to gesticulate anything to tell her that he’d do anything, anything at all if she’d just make the pain go away.

“Tell me about the Destiny Book.”

The enormous pressure on his head and neck released but he didn’t feel anything. Unseeing, his eyes stared blankly at the wall in front of him. His hand scribbled a series of zeros and ones on the bed-sheet, while in a dull and monotonous voice he recited the translation.

********************

It was out there. She didn’t feel like a fool anymore. She wasn’t a jealous mother unwilling to see her beautiful baby grow up.

She wasn’t.

She wanted Max to be happy. She wanted someone to love him, unconditionally. She wanted some nice sweet girl to look into her shy son and realize how wonderful he was. She wanted him to know what it felt like to be loved truly – to feel the joy’s of being kissed and touched by a woman who loved him. She wanted him to give that gift to someone.

But not to her…that that…girl.

Shit! Shit! Shit! This was so not good, Michael groused. Why did M have to ask him for explanations? He wasn’t any good at them. This was not his forte.

“Tess is ok, ma. I mean, she’s a little…cooler because she wasn’t brought up by a big family. But she’s ok. At least Max has a girl,” he said hastily.

“But why her?” Diane stressed. “Surely, you don’t believe that she’s going to be his young bride in this life as well? By that logic you and Izzy should be you know?” She gestured uncomfortably.

“God, No!” Michael blanched.

He was definitely not going to…to get it on with his sister. Disgusting. That was not going to happen ever. She was his sister for Christ’s sake. Not even if hell froze over.

“Well, that’s one less thing to worry about then,” Diane laughed at his expression of disgust.

“Max is in a completely different position, ma!” Michael rallied.

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

“Let me see if I have this right. Max was king, Izzy was a princess, and you were a military commander, while Tess was the queen.”

“Yea but,”

“Let me finish, please.”

He recognized that voice. That wasn’t his soft warm mother. That was Diane Evans, lawyer and barracuda in court.

“So, you expect me to believe that in this life you have all reconciled to the fact that none of you is king, princess, or commander; that you have no romantic attachment to Isabelle and she none for you…but you expect me to believe that Max has accepted his role as Tess’s husband, in this life, following the pattern of his previous life.”

“I…”

“Yes or no, Michael?”

“Yes, but,”

“You insist that Max is not a king that none of you are who you were, yet at the same time you are telling me that things are different for Max. Why is that?”

“Because…”

“Because what, Michael? It is one thing for him to look after you, to take care of all you to, and even to a certain extent help you make decisions…wait for me to finish…while you both insist that he isn’t your king or leader anymore. So tell me Michael, why does he have to follow this Destiny, which you and Isabelle have clearly rejected?”

“It wasn’t like that, ok,” he burst out, her words hammering at his conscience.

They were everything that he had thought and then rejected. He wasn’t pushing Max to do this. Maxwell got into this all on his own.

“Izzy was the one so gung-ho about it. Izzy was the one who said that it would be great it he hooked up with her because she was like us.”

If Michael had been paying attention to his mother, he would have recognized the danger signs. Twin flags of color burned in her cheeks.

“So they met up. Izzy set it up and it worked out, ok. I think it’s good for him to have a girl. And she likes him so what’s the big deal. Besides, if he didn’t want it or her, he could have said no. Max is a big boy ma. He can make his own decisions.”

Diane took a deep breath. She knew when Michael became uncertain he blustered. Pushing him at that time didn’t do any good. He simply dug his heels in even further.

“Honey, I just think you should talk to him, is all? Ok.”

Seeing his rebellious scowl, she continued softly, “can you do that for me, please?”

“Yeah, I guess,” he said grudgingly.

Putting the dirty glasses in the sink, she paused when a thought occurred to her.

“Michael, what are Tess’s powers?”

FUCK!

********************

Alex woke up with a start. It was still light outside. He had had the weirdest dream ever.

He’d been having a lot of those lately.

It was just really strange. He’d never been one for having vivid dreams, or even many of them. But over the past few months, he’d been having recurring dreams. They left a bad after taste in his mouth.

It’s just your imagination Whitman! Snap out of it, he scoffed at himself.

The door opened.

Startled, he looked at door only to be comforted by a familiar face.

“Leanna!”

“Hey sleepy-head!” She sauntered into the room her blue eyes gleaming.

“You fell asleep in the middle of lunch.”

“Lunch?” he echoed stupidly.

His mouth felt like it was full of cotton wool.

“Yes, silly boy. We ate Thai, which I brought for you specially, and you were telling me about how you’d gone sightseeing earlier today. I left to get some paper towels and when I came back you’d fallen asleep.”

“Oh, sorry,” he stuttered. Sightseeing? He really couldn’t remember. Something flashed in the corner of his eye and he felt better all of a sudden.

“I must have been more tired than I thought. I made a movie of my day trip. You wanna see?”

“Sure,” Leanna smiled.

Excellent, things were going just right.

********************

“Her powers are similar to Izzy’s,” Michael mumbled.

“You mean she can see people’s dreams? Put things in their subconscious?” Diane frowned.

“Sorta,” he hedged.

“Michael, please just tell me.”

“Shecanmakepeopleseethingsthataren’tthereandmakethemrememberstuffthatdidn’thappen!”

Diane spent a moment trying to decipher what Michael had just spluttered, when it hit her.

Aghast, she stared at him. “Are you telling me that she can make illusions seem real? That she can alter and create memories? Fake memories? Memories that aren’t real?”

Preparing for the verbal smack down coming his way, the smack down he deserved, Michael stared his shoes.

“Yes, Ma.”

*********************

Ok, first of all, I'm very sadly compulsive.

Secondly, I will spare you the lurid promises I had to make in order to get ten minutes worth of net time to post this....

A/N: Same epigraph as before.


*********************


Chapter 25


Previously on Chapter 24 –

Max succumbs to Tess who is mindwarping Alex. Isabelle is at the Reservation and Michael has just confirmed Diane’s worst fears about Tess.

Aghast, she stared at him. “Are you telling me that she can make illusions seem real? That she can alter and create memories? Fake memories? Memories that aren’t real?”

Preparing for the verbal smack down coming his way, the smack down he deserved, Michael stared his shoes.

“Yes, Ma.”


********************


Dumbfounded by Michael’s revelations, Diane stared at him in silence. Not even in her wildest dreams had she imagined that the situation would be this bad, that her children would display poor judgment of this magnitude.

“Michael, how?” She trailed off unable to form a coherent question.

How could you be so stupid? How could you be so blind, so self-absorbed? How could you leave Max so alone?

Anger revved inside her. Disgusted with the enormity of their selfish self-interest she just stared at him as the silence stretched out between them.

“Ma?”

Her raised hand sliced through the air, cutting off Michael’s words in his throat.

Diane couldn’t believe it. Surely, she had raised smarter, more observant, sensitive children? If she had, then who were these strangers?

But underneath all of it she blamed herself and Phillip. They had always known Isabelle and Michael’s reliance, excessive reliance, on Max and his judgment. They had always known how the two avoided taking responsibility and how Max allowed them to take advantage of him. Max was as guilty as the rest of them. He never made them answerable to their own actions. But neither she nor Phillip had done anything to curtail that trend. They had hoped that their children would grow out of it. And their hope had blinded them to the fact that they never did.

But this wasn’t the right time for recriminations or for anger. Right now she needed answers. She needed to figure out how much damage had already been done and where Tess stood in the scheme of things.

She would deal with the three of them…later.

“I want you to tell me every single detail that you know about Tess. Don’t skip anything, no matter how small or insignificant it might seem and do not under any circumstances,” Diane pinned Michael with a fierce glare, “try to hide the truth from me.”

Nodding in acceptance, Michael followed her to the study, where Diane sat down and took meticulous notes of everything he told her. In the end, it was alarmingly little.

Tess Harding had transferred to Roswell High at the end of their junior year but hadn’t made contact until senior year, when she and Isabelle were paired together for an English project.

“How did Isabelle know she was one of you?”

“She felt it. I mean, it was the same thing Max felt when he saw me. We recognize each others signature energy.”

“Did you recognize her?”

“Yeah.”

“Did Max?”

“Yea, well, sort of.”

Aware of his mother’s simmering temper, Michael scrambled to explain. “He didn’t recognize her at first, but Isabelle and I were pretty sure…”

“Pretty sure or certain?” Diane demanded to know.

“I…we…it became certain later.” Miserable with his weak answer he hedged, “she knew things about us, about home. Things no one else could know. She must have been…she is one of us. WE were sure. Maxwell is too cautious about these things. Two out of three, we outvoted him.”

Diane’s temple throbbed. If she had even been remotely violent, she would have beaten sense into them. Ignoring the stab of hurt, at Michael’s declaration of “home,” she ploughed ahead.

“Then what happened?”

“We found the pod chamber and the message. You remember, we told you about it.”

Diane thought back for a moment. That had been a traumatic day. “You seem to have left out some important details.”

Michael had the grace to blush, before continuing. “Anyway so the message told us that in order to fight and defeat our enemies we would need to form a four-square. Iz and I can work together. I mean, we’ve practiced using our powers together and it works out. It was Maxwell who had the most trouble working with Tess. He wouldn’t open up to her, and that was not good.”

Remembering the fights they’d had over it, Michael stood up and paced ignoring his mother’s perceptive gaze.

“He needed to open up to her, to connect with her or we would all die. It had to be done. You must see that it was necessary. We didn’t want to force him but Maxwell needed to understand. He had to recognize the importance of trusting Tess.”

His voice grew louder and the note of supplication stronger. Hands spread out before him, Michael willed his words to be right. He wanted desperately for his mother to believe him, for Max to be ok because if they had been wrong, if he had been wrong…then that just didn’t bear thinking about.

“Iz and I told Max that we should all connect together to Tess, so he wouldn’t be alone. We didn’t abandon him. He knew it was the only way, so we did it. And he remembered some things.”

“Did his memories match yours?”

“Yeah, I think so. I mean, they weren’t very clear, you know. It’s because he was still holding back. So, he thought,” noting his mother’s disbelieving look, he beseeched, “I swear it was his idea. He decided to do one-on-one memory retrieval sessions with Tess.”

“I see,” was the unemotional response.

Michael continued desperately searching for the right words, to explain their decisions, the utter necessity of their actions.

“Those went well. I mean it seemed like it, since he didn’t mind Tess so much anymore. Anyway, she and Iz were hanging out a lot and so it only seemed natural,” he winced at the word, “that they hook up.”

Diane capped her pen, thoughtfully.

“I swear ma, that’s all I did. When Iz got on his case, I told her to calm down. We didn’t push him into anything.”

“You know Michael it seems to me that you have done a great deal of nothing.”

Ignoring his protest, she continued in the same calm manner. “It would seem that you…we will talk discuss Isabelle’s role in this later…that you in your haste to accept Tess and her information of home,”

Regret filled him at the pain in her voice. “I didn’t mean…”

“Wait until I’m finished please. Your eagerness for news of home and your origins, while understandable, led you to doubt your brother’s judgment and both of you deliberately ignored and belittled his feelings on the matter. Max is also to blame here for not standing up for him self, and for assuming responsibility and guilt when he shouldn’t have. But that isn’t the point,” focusing her gaze on his face she continued, “you put your brother in a harmful situation and then chose to ignore your own culpability in the matter.”

Somewhere in the house a clock struck the hour.

“I love you Michael, but if anything should happen to Max because of your and Isabelle’s selfish and risky behavior I will hold you both responsible.”

Michael paled.

“Are we clear?”

Mutely he nodded.

“Ok then. Do you know if Tess is planning on coming over today?”

“No, she isn’t. She went to Albuquerque for the weekend.”

“Excellent. Now, I want you to go and get Isabelle from the Reservation and we will try to resolve this situation. I’ll wait here for Max and your father to come back. Ok?”

“Yeah, ok,” Michael turned to leave when he remembered something else. “Alex is coming back on Sunday. Max has to pick him because Maria has to run errands for her mom.”

“Fine,” Diane replied collecting her hurriedly written notes.

“Ma,”

“Yes,”

“I’m…I’ll fix this.” And with that, Michael strode out of the room, leaving Diane clutching a sheaf of papers in her trembling hands.


********************


Michael strode through the shoppers gathered at the Reservation. Thank god he was tall enough to see over their heads, and Iz was pretty recognizable even in a crowd. But still it was taking too damn long to find her.

Scouring the crowd, he caught sight of a familiar face.

“Eddie! Hey Eddie!”

Eddie, Riverdog’s protégé, turned in Michael’s direction. Catching sight of his moody friend, he smiled broadly and pointed to a small outcropping away from the crowd before quickly taking off in that direction.

By the time Michael reached him, Eddie was leaning against the rock calmly smoking a cigarette.

“Hey! I was just going to call you?” The two men shook hands.

“Oh? Why? Have you seen Isabelle?” Michael asked, still looking around for her.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Michael’s attention zeroed in on him. “What are you talking about? Is she ok? Where is she?”

“She’s ok, for now,” the young man replied, monitoring his surroundings. “We can’t talk here. Come, I’ll take you to her, but first you have to listen to what I tell you.”

“Let’s go. What happened?” Michael barked, pulling his hair out of his eyes and tying it back.

“She came to my stall. And we started talking when she had a…reaction…to a pendant that she was looking at.”

“A reaction? What the fuck does that mean?” Michael glowered, keeping pace with the other man’s long strides.

Ignoring his outburst, Eddie kept talking. “She seemed to freeze and then fainted. Luckily, I caught her before she hit the ground. It was all very suddenly. It barely took a few moments before she was burning up and sweating. I didn’t know what to do so, I took her to Riverdog…here we are.”

He stopped in front of a small cottage, where an old man was sitting on the porch.

“Riverdog?”

“Good, you came,” Riverdog began without preamble. “We must hurry. There isn’t a lot of time. Do you have the stones?”

Addressing Eddie, he asked, “Did you call the family?”

“Yes, I talked to Mr. Evans. They are five minutes behind Michael. I will go wait for them.”

“Michael?” the old man addressed him again, as soon as Eddie had left. “Do you have the stones?”

“The healing stones?”

“Yes,”

“Yeah, they are in my bag. But why do we need them? What’s happening? What’s wrong with Isabelle?”

“Hurry, bring them in. There isn’t enough time,” Riverdog called over his shoulder as he headed into the house.

Grumbling Michael hefted his backpack, grateful that he had procrastinated on putting back the stones. Fear and anger coiled inside him at the lack of information and the fact that Isabelle was sick.

They didn’t get sick.

Ever.

Maybe she was dying. His sister was dying.

Furious at his morbid thoughts, he firmly pushed them aside before striding into the unfamiliar house.

“In here.”

Following Riverdog’s voice, Michael walked into what could only be called a meditation room. Unfurnished, except for the sconces in the wall, and the small fire burning in the pit at its center, it was completely empty.

No, not completely empty.

Riverdog was kneeling across from him, over a prone body.

Michael’s hurt jumped into his throat. This was bad. This was going to be very bad. With a strong sense of foreboding, he walked around the flaming pit and looked down at the prone form.

It was Isabelle.

Her blonde hair matted and her clothes soaked with sweat, she lay still. Her face was ashen, streaks of green flickered under her skin. Her mouth was gradually turning mottled grey. But the most shocking of all, were the faint strands of webbing covering her hands, her feet and gradually spreading their gleaming white tentacles over her body.

Isabelle was dying.

Ok, so I promise Chapter 27 will get us into the present and we'll hit the ground running! This one...just...well, read it and let me know. Two posts, because of length. Sorry guys, this site is being retarded and won't let me post properly -- so I'll try to post the rest of the chapter later. :evil: I've tried four times already. AARGH!


Chapter 26

“Ay, now the plot thickens very much upon us.”
(Buckingham: The Rehearsal)


(The Evans Residence)


Diane Evans paced the length of her driveway. Tumultuous thoughts and conflicting emotions tightened her nerves until she felt like screaming.

What were they going to do?

How was she going to explain this to Philip?

Luckily, she didn’t have to answer that question as Mr. Evans’ SUV pulled to a stop in front of the house.

They were both rushing to speak before he’d even closed the car door, before she’d taken a step forward.

“Isabelle is sick!”

“Tess is controlling Max!”

“What?” she shrieked.

“What?” he repeated.

Shaking his head Philip Evans said, “What do you mean, Tess is controlling Max? Where is Max? Where is Michael?”

“I…,” Diane started then stopped. “Isabelle is sick?”

“Yes. Eddie called me from the Reservation. We need to leave now.” Looking around he asked, “Where are the boys?”

“Michael is at the Reservation. Max has gone for a run. He should be back any minute now.”

“But they don’t fall sick. What’s wrong with her?”

“I don’t know.” Philip replied rubbing his face wearily. “He wouldn’t tell me over the phone.”

For the first-time since his sudden arrival he noted Diane’s pallor and fine-drawn features.

“What is it?”

“Oh, Phillip,” she stumbled into his comforting embrace.

He could feel her trembling against him as her hands clutched his collar.

“Diane? Sweetheart? What’s wrong?”

He strained to hear her muffled reply. “Tess is controlling Max.”

“Tess is controlling Max? What does that mean?” Putting her away from him, Phillip searched his wife’s tear stained face.

Trembling, she convulsively gripped her fingers together. “I’m just going to say this once, really quickly before Max gets back, ok? He doesn’t know this. You can’t repeat this in front of him. Michael and I talked…”

“And?”

She told him the entire story. A flood gate of words opened up as she explained Tess’ powers, her sudden appearance and acceptance in their lives. The changes in Max and the sibling pressure he’d experienced.

Through it all, Philip just stared at his wife disbelievingly. Whatever he’d imagined she was going to say – this – was most definitely NOT it.

They were lawyers for fuck’s sake not alien teen counselors. He didn’t have any super-powers! How were they supposed to fight off mind-control? His daughter was hurt, something was wrong with her. She was sick. And that never happened. Max was…mind control was there even such a thing?

“Yes, there is.”

Shit! Had he said that aloud?

“Yes, you did. Philip we have to do something!”

Acknowledging the obvious he nodded. But what could they do?

***********

(The Reservation)

“What’s wrong with her? What can I do?” Michael asked moving Isabelle away from the dying flames. Her body glistened with sweat and her breathing grew increasingly wet and labored.

Riverdog made no response. He handed Michael a worn cotton cloth.

“What?”

“Take her clothes off, and wipe her down. I’ll bring out the water.”

“What?” Michael exclaimed, horrified. There was no way in hell he was going to strip his sister naked.

“That is not going to happen.”

“The impurities must be cleaned. You’re her kind, I can’t do it,” Riverdog replied exasperatedly.

Seeing Michael’s mutinous expression, he added a final injunction, “Do it, or she will die!"

Not waiting to see whether Michael complied or not, Riverdog swept out of the room.

Grimacing, Michael slowly eased her t-shirt off, muttering about women’s inability to wear loose clothing.

“Sorry, Izzy,” he mumbled in her hair, before firmly closing his eyes, and sliding off her jeans. He would have done anything to use his powers, but fear of how they would react to her feeble state prevented him.

Eyes closed, he smoothed the wash-cloth down her body, careful to keep her underwear in its place.

“You have to come back Izzy. We can’t be a family without you. You have to come back.”

***********

(The Evans Residence)

“Well, first things first,” Philip sighed, “can you put together a bag for Izzy?”

“I’ll go do that,” Diane replied glad to have something to do. “So, you’ll wait here for Max, and then we can get going.”

He nodded in agreement. Everything Diane had told him was swirling around in his head. Involuntarily, Philip pressed a hand to his stomach, the leaden weight refused to settle. He had five minutes to think things through, and figure out what they needed to do. According to Diane they didn’t have much time before Tess returned. And if she was as dangerous as his wife thought, then they needed to have a plan.

Frowning, Philip thought over everything they knew.

Max and Michael had primarily physical powers. Discounting Max’s healing and empathy, they could both project shields, blow things up – to a greater or lesser degree – and in general were physically capable.

Isabelle, on the other hand, was much stronger mentally, as was Tess. They could tap into the subconscious, project images, retrieve memories. And in Tess’ case, create new ones. So, the women were stronger psychically and the men were comfortable physically.

So, what did it all mean?

Max obviously didn’t know he was being controlled otherwise he would have done something about it. Izzy was sick, which meant they couldn’t use her help to fix things. But why had she fallen ill at this particular moment? The lawyer inside him asked.

Why now? Why not two months ago?

Waving the thought aside, he focused on Michael. So far, Michael was the only one who was unaffected. Had Tess not tried anything on him, or was she simply unable to get through? The latter was much more likely, Philip concluded. As much as they loved Michael and while he was a part of their family, everyone knew that parts of him were still sealed off. Michael would brook no interference, penetration or curiosity and neither he nor Diane had pushed the issue, simply because of how long it had taken them to earn his trust, to truly make him their son.

And maybe, that was the answer. Maybe, they could use Michael’s stone walls to fend off Tess, or at least contain the situation until Izzy got better.

Phillip knew he was clutching at straws. This plan wasn’t even a plan. It was scraps of hopes and bits of theories cobbled together. But it was the best he could do. Yes, he thought decisively, that was what they would do.

“Dad?”

Startled by the interruption, Phillip turned to face a red-faced, sweaty Max.

“What’s up?” Max asked, wiping his face with his t-shirt.

“Why?”

Max gave his father a weird look. “You were talking to yourself. I called your name twice.”

“Oh, sorry,” Philip replied jumpily, scrutinizing his son’s face.

Well, he certainly didn’t look like he was being mind-war…controlled!

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? No headaches, or pains, or anything like that?”

Max stared at him completely bewildered. His dad wasn’t acting like himself at all. He was twitchy and looked stressed.

“No, dad,” he replied slowly, lending weight to his words, “I’m fine. We don’t get sick remember.”

“Right, right.”

“Are you sure everything is ok?” Max asked again.

“Hmm, yes,” Philip replied absentmindedly. “What? No, I mean, Diane.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, Max, your home,” his mother called out. “I was wondering when you’d get back.”

“Hi, mom! Umm, what’s going on?” Max asked looking between the two of them.

“Eddie called from the Reservation,” Diane started, giving Philip the overnight bag in her hands, “Izzy is sick.”

“Sick?” Max repeated, uncomprehending. “But we don’t get sick. What, you mean, she fell or something?”

“No, son, Eddie said sick. I asked him twice, and he was very clear on that,” Philip interjected.

“But I don’t understand.”

“We can discuss it on the way to the Reservation,” Philip replied smoothly, ushering both of them into the car.

Sitting in the backseat, sweat, and dirty clothes forgotten, Max said, “Tell me everything, Eddie told you.”

***********

(Las Cruces)

“So, what else did you find out, Alex?” the blonde girl repeated, patiently.

Alex squinted at her through narrowed eyes. Who was she again? He didn’t feel so good. The seven dwarf orchestra was playing really loudly today. It was amazing he could hear anything, over them.

“Alex,” her voice grew softer, colder.

“I…” his mouth felt thick. He struggled to control it but it just wouldn’t work. The words stuck in his throat, choking him. He couldn’t concentrate. Red and black specks floated before his eyes. Vainly, he struggled to bring the girl into focus. It would hurt a lot more, if he didn’t. He knew that.

It was the last thought he had, before he fell back into darkness.

Tess/Leanna watched him fall, as if from a great height. His body shaped by pain. Soft smooth hands, fluttered over his face. Her slim cruel fingers mapped out the stress lines at the corners of his mouth, in the creases near his eyes, the hollows of his cheek and the pained furrows on his forehead. The agony of his mind was etched in his face.

Digging her fingers into the hollows of his temples, Tess urged her power outwards. It rose with a hiss from the center of her being, and pushed through her fingertips, ravaging Alex’s mind. Narrowing her cerulean eyes, she concentrated her power and ripped through his memories and thoughts like a dark whirlwind.

Where was it?

Where was it?

Growling with frustration, she pierced through synapses, and cells trailing blood and membrane behind. A thin stream of blood oozed from his nose, filling the grooves around his mouth, dripping on his collar bones. Pale and still, he was almost dead, except for the steady alien energy hunting secrets inside him.

Ravaged like a Raggedy Anne Doll by the force of her penetration, Alex gave up everything.

***********

(The Reservation)

“Eddie!” Max was already jumping out of the car before it rolled to a stop.

“Max, Mr. Evans, Mrs. Evans,” the young man responded. “I’m glad you’re here. We should hurry. The first part of the ritual should be done.”

“Please call me Diane,” a pause, “What kind of ritual?”

“Riverdog was going to do a cleansing, and then use the healing stones.”

“What happened to her Eddie?” Max asked worriedly.

“I don’t know. She was looking at something and then she just collapsed like dead weight.”

He looked around furtively, before saying quietly, “I know…Riverdog told me that…visitors don’t fall sick. So, this is not so good.”

“Visitors?” Phillip mouthed to his wife.

“Yeah, we don’t,” Max replied quickly. “What’s happening to her?”

“She has a fever, and she’s sweating a lot. And there is…webbing of some kind, over her. The last time I checked, it was covering her waist and legs.”

“Through here,” Eddie pointed and the remaining three Evans’ fearfully stepped through the doorway.

“Oh, God!”

***********

continuation, not posted yet

****Chapter 27 continued from pg 16****

(Las Cruces)

BINGO! Tess thought giddily.

She wanted to twirl with joy.

Whoop out loud.

Shout from roof-tops.

Finally! After all the crap, and hard-work everything that she’d been looking for was right here.

Yes! The utter inexpressibly wonderful gloriousness of it all!

She felt like crying with happiness. Tess riffled through Alex’s memories of the translation. When she came across the Sentinel her eyes gleamed fanatically.

***********

(Riverdog’s Cabin)

It was hard to tell who was more stunned in the room. The pungent smell of coriander and red chilies permeated the air, wraiths of fog twisted over the heating cauldron in the fire pit.

Michael froze in his place. Hand caught in mid-air as he leaned forward to wipe Izzy’s brow. Diane stumbled against Philip, horrorstricken at the sight of her daughter covered by graying mucous – flickers of green sparking underneath her face and hands. Max was rooted in his place. This was everything and nothing like he had imagined.

It was the old Indian who broke the screaming silence.

“You must gather round. Pick a stone each and focus on it.”

As if in a daze, the Evans’ took their place around Isabelle, torn between staring at her and focusing on the dull stones in their hands.

“You must all concentrate on the good things in her. Things you remember the most, why you love her, why this and she are important. You must be true. There is no room for mistakes. You understand?”

Mutely, all four nodded.

“You must not be dishonest. If you lie the energy will be corrupted and she will die.”

“If you fear what is going to happen, step away. Your fear will infect others and she will die.”

“You understand?”

The silence in the room was deafening.

“What’s wrong with her?” Philip’s voice wavered, sifted through the smoke.

“She is off-balance. There is…her energy is depleted…drained. Her power is her life-force and too much has been used, so she cannot sustain herself. To bring her back you must all give of yourself. You see? This is why there must be truth and courage, or it will not work.”

Riverdog directed a long look at Max.

“Do you see?”

“Yes,” Max nodded determinedly. Aware that the old man was trying to tell him something but…

“Very well. Be careful. There is…something,” Riverdog shrugged off the incomplete thought. On the fringes of consciousness something nagged at him – but this was not his path to travel.

“Mom, Dad, Michael?” Max looked at each one in turn trying to assess their willingness, their commitment.

“We’re ready,” his parents replied in unison.

“Michael?”

“Let’s do this.”

Taking a deep breath, all four of them closed their eyes and focused their thoughts and will on the stones.

<I wonder if this will work>

<She looks so pale. I’ve never seen her so sick. Please>

<Why didn’t I see it? Why didn’t I know>

<This has to work. I can’t do this without you, Iz>

************

continued in next post

******continued post******

(Isabelle’s mind)

Searching for her, their unanswered calls merged into one and thrummed like a heartbeat through the stones. For a single moment, they all connected. Thought, spirit and mind, fused into one organic whole. They lived and breathed, Isabelle. And then suddenly, there she was…but she wasn’t. It was her, but it wasn’t. She was the absence of Isabelle. A fragile wraith divested of who she was a hollow form, empty of purpose and content. They moved towards her as one, only to have her move away from their will. The frayed edges of her aura curled inwards, like a piece of paper held up to the fire, the heat of their love singeing her.

<Izzy> They called out.

<Izzy, come back. We need you>

Desperate for their warmth, she willed herself forward but the memory of her unwilling betrayal wouldn’t let her move. She wanted to call out to them, let them know she could hear them. She missed them. She wanted to be with them. But she couldn’t.

How could she show herself to them? They would hate her. She was a betrayer. A traitor. Pride and selfish love had been her downfall. She had fallen into Tess’ hands like a ripe plum. Fool! Fool that she was she’d trusted Tess over her family, over her brothers.

Her brothers.

She had betrayed Max. She had used Michael.

But to betray Max…who loved her despite everything. She was selfish and vindictive but he loved her anyway.

Would he love her after this? After he found out what she’d done?

NO!

And she couldn’t bear it. She counted on his love to keep her grounded, to keep her sane. She had never thought she could hurt him, but she had, repeatedly.

She should have fought harder. She should have never believed Tess. She should have told Max…everything. But she hadn’t and this was her punishment. She would lose her brothers, her family.

<Isabelle, please. We love you>

How could they? They didn’t know she was a monster. No one could love a monster. She had played Michael against Max, counting on his desire for answers to support her. She’d forced Max into a corner, forced him to open to Tess. She had initiated their downfall.

She had ignored his fears, his anxieties, scoffed at his weakness. He wasn’t fit to be a king. He couldn’t make hard decisions, but she could. They needed Tess, but he wouldn’t understand. In the end, she had made him understand.

She had let Tess help her mind-walk him. She didn’t want to but she had. Why had she done that? It seemed so obvious then, Max needed a girl. He was alone.

<Isabelle if you leave we will be incomplete. We can be without you. Don’t leave us alone.>

But Max had never been alone. She’d forgotten that when Tess arrived. She had forgotten many things. She had forgotten how to be human, how to be compassionate. In the end, Tess had exposed the monster within her.

<Isabelle>

The voice came closer. It was so cold where she was. She was so tired. She didn’t want to be alone anymore, a prisoner in her own mind forever trapped in a web of lies and deceit.

What was real? What was illusion?

She couldn’t remember. She didn’t want to remember. She just wanted oblivion.

<Izzy, please. I don’t know what’s happening to us. IZZY!>

It was that last voice, Max’s voice, separated from all the others that gave her warmth. It made her realize, she was being a coward. She needed to face him, expose her sins. Let him hate her.

<I love you, Izzy. Please. Come back>

He would hate her.

< We’ll fix it. Whatever it is. I promise>

She had to let him know that it was her fault, all of it.

<Max> Her shivering voice, echoed.

<I’m here Izzy. We are all here. You have to come forward>

<I can’t, Max>

<Just follow my voice>

She wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to.

Ashamed, she inched forward, guilt and self-hatred shackling her ankles.

<I have to tell you something, Max. I’m so sorry. So sorry. It was me, Max. All of it>

<All of what>

<I helped Tess get you. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. I’m sorry I was such a bitch. I just…please don’t hate me, Max. Please.>

<Izzy, I could never hate you>

<But you will. When I tell you everything you’ll hate me. I hate myself.>

<Izzy, please, come with me. Its cold here and I want to see you. Mom and Dad are so worried>

<They’ll hate me too.>

<They don’t hate you. They are worried about you. We all are. They connected through the healing stones for you. Whatever it is, we’ll talk about it outside. Just come with me>

The darkness lightened a little, wavering with the force of the disembodied voices.

<My hold is weakening, Iz. Michael is buffering mom and dad. You have to come back>

Mom and dad.

She wanted to see her parents one last time before her brothers banished her. She wanted to remember what they looked like when they still loved her. Bowing to the inevitable, Isabelle gathered the shreds of her life-force and hurled herself at Max.

************

continued in next post

****continued from last post**** please see A/N below****

(Riverdog’s Cabin)

Isabelle woke with a bone-rattling gasp. Twisting against the disintegrating web clinging to her, she scrambled to her feet. Green flickers exploded from her hands and she doubled over in pain. Every breath she took burnt her insides.

“It hurts,” she moaned, leaning into Michael’s iron-grip.

“Lie down,” River dog commanded, bringing everyone to attention.

“Oh, baby,” Diane exclaimed, laying Isabelle’s head on her lap. “Max, can’t you heal her?” Phillip asked, covering Isabelle’s body with a sheet.

“No, you must not,” Riverdog exclaimed.

“But, why? Can’t you see she’s in pain?” Michael growled, raking a hand through his hair.

This was un-fucking-believable!

“I do not know much about your people, but this green light I have seen before,” the old man continued thoughtfully. “It happens when two things happen at the same time.”

“Stop talking in riddles! Just spit it out!” Michael barked his anxiety at an all time high.

“Michael!” Phillip quelled him with a sharp look. “Let him finish.”

Riverdog remained undisturbed by the volatile display and the interruptions. “When you deplete your powers, use too much of them, too often and too soon, the balance is upset. Your bodies protect themselves by creating a cocoon, so that you can rest uninterrupted. Heal.”

“So, the web was helping Izzy regenerate?” Max frowned. “What about the sparks?”

“Mmm. Did you know your basic powers can’t be mixed?”

“I don’t understand,” Michael said with restrained patience.

“Sometimes, if you need, you can draw on each others’ energy, but not power, to sustain yourself. Any of you feel weak? Loss of sleep? Change in appetite?”

Michael and Max looked at each other in bewilderment. This was not what they’d anticipated.

“Max hasn’t been sleeping well,” Diane finally interjected, her gaze never straying from Isabelle’s face.

“Mom,”

“You haven’t,” she replied shortly. “He also hasn’t been eating well.”

“How are your powers?” Riverdog asked.

“I…they are fine.”

“Who is closer to Isabelle, between you two?”

“We…”

“Maxwell is,” Michael interrupted. “You are Max. We both know it.”

“Yes, that makes sense,” Riverdog nodded. “She’s been siphoning off small amounts of your energy, to feed into her power. The purpose of your energy has twisted. It reacted to your sister’s and her body can’t cope with it.”

“Max can’t heal her because that would put more of his energy in her body. Hurt her,” Philip asked aloud.

“Yes.”

“But we can’t leave her like that,” Max said anxiously, as Isabelle groaned.

“You must. Her energy must fight for control. It will take time.”

“Take time? How much time?” Diane questioned.

“As much time as is needed,” and with that the old man left the cabin.

***********

(Las Cruces)

Damn! The information wasn’t complete, Tess fumed.

All those months wasted prepping Max, Isabelle and Michael; all the energy expended on Alex, and the information was incomplete!

Tess couldn’t believe it. She wanted to rip her hair out. This was just ridiculous. Turning on her heel she stared at a waxen Alex. Waving a hand, she removed the sticky coagulated blood from his nose and mouth. He hadn’t held up under the pressure, she sighed morosely. This mission was being fed-exed to shit!

She debated the merits of waking him up and forcing him to translate more. She’d given him time to recover before. But then, she’d had time before. If she was running out of time, then so was he.

But, what if he dies? What if he can’t handle another mind-warp? What if the combination of her and Isabelle’s powers proved too much for his brain? What if….fuck the what if’s! Tess thought savagely, her eyes glowing unearthly blue.

A cruel smile sliced her face. Crooning softly, she pressed her fingers to his face and whispered,

“Alex….”

***********

(Riverdog’s Cabin)

In Riverdog’s cabin, Isabelle screamed in agony and terror.

************

A/N: The board is still acting up guys. It won't let me post the Isabelle mind section properly - so, I've tried to post it here, but it's screwy. It's up on the Boardello - the way it should be. I HATE to redirect you, and I'm really sorry.

Thank you for the feedback and bumps everyone. I apologise for leaving you hanging - work just hasn't let up.

Enjoy!

References: "Signs" - M. Night Shyamalan, some EOTW, "Heart of Darkness" - Conrad.


Chapter 27


"Such welcome and unwelcome at once
'Tis hard to reconcile."
(Macbeth, IV-III)


“AAAAAAAHHHHHH – Noooooooooo!”

Isabelle’s long low wail echoed in the room long after she collapsed into Michael’s waiting arms.

Anguished, Max stepped forward. “We have to do something. I…we can’t just leave her like this.”

“You heard what he said Maxwell. You can’t do anything,” Michael retorted brusquely his tone contrasting with his gentle treatment of Isabelle.

“But there is nothing wrong with me.”

Silence. The Evans’ avoided looking at each other.

“Or is there?” Max asked. “I don’t think there is. I feel fine.”

“You’re not fine Maxwell.”

“Then why the hell don’t you tell me what’s wrong?” Max shouted, pushed to the limit.

Diane and Phillip exchanged quick glances. This was not going well.

“Max?” Diane began hesitantly, “We discovered some things today, when you were on your run.”

“What things?”

“Well, I…”

“Your mother was concerned about you,” Phillip picked up the conversation smoothly, “and we wanted to know a little more about Tess.”

“Tess?” Max blanched. “What does Tess have to do with this?”

His parents exchanged another concerned look.

“What? What aren’t you guys telling me? Michael?” He spun around to look at his unresponsive brother.

Michael was leaning against the wall with his eyes closed. Legs stretched out before him, he’d pulled Isabelle between them, cradling her against his chest. Holding her hands in his, he was very slowly clenching and unclenching her hands against his knees. Her chest rose and fell in time with his.

“Maybe we should take this to the other room,” Diane murmured, casting a sad glance at her pale daughter.

“Yes. C’mon Max.”

********************

Michael didn’t know how it happened.

One minute he was concentrating in pushing air in and out of his body in time with Isabelle and the next minute he was in Isabelle…except not.

He had a vague sense of being tied to his body. A brick red strand of energy firmly embedding him in his own body, but otherwise he was surrounded with what used to be his sister.

Except she didn’t feel or look right.

She was grey and murky in patches. There was none of the lightness of being he associated with her, or the deep plum of her aura.

It was almost as though her body was a hollow shell. Her energy had vacated its temporary home. Staggering in the face of such colorlessness, Michael tried to fumble his way through the mist. It got him nowhere very fast. He felt lost, disoriented, moving in circles – retracing his steps.

The mist seemed to mock him.

Angered by his own helplessness, Michael was just about to push through forcibly, when saw a slight flare of color in the dense wall in front of him. Biting down on his impatience, he moved through the cold in search of color.

The mist became thicker and darker almost concrete. Its prickling tentacles scraping against his skin. The bitter cold made each lung of air an effort. Sweat poured out of his body as Michael fought his way through the heart of the darkness. Energy scrabbled inside him begging to be released but he knew that would be the end of everything. It would be the fastest way of incinerating both Isabelle and himself so he clenched his will formidable against it. But the despair, the effort it took to push through and the relentless fight against his own protective nature and strength were taking their toll on him. Exhausted, he stumbled through the fog until…he fell against...

A small clear sphere, made out of a mesh of pale plum and iridescent blue energy. And inside it, curled up into a small motionless ball, was Isabelle.

********************

“Tess is mindwarping us.” Max repeated. “She’s using Isabelle to steal my energy.”

Diane nodded silently.

“But why would she do that?” He asked disbelievingly. “I mean, I’m…we’re together. She’s…the one.”

Phillip cursed under his breath at the betrayal and the beginings of hysteria in Max’s voice.

“I know sweetheart,” Diane soothed, gingerly smoothing down his hair unsure of his reaction. “But maybe she isn’t who you thought she was.”

“But SHE is.” Max shouted. “I recognize her.”

Silence.

“Isn’t she?” he whispered to himself, leaning against the wall for support when his knees gave out.

“Why do you think that, Max?” Phillip looked at his wild-eyed son.

He had never seen Max so torn, or out of control before. It was disconcerting to see his son so emotional, his heart on his sleeve. For all their openness and close relationship, Max’s heart had always been secret. And it was torture to witness what these revelations were doing to him.

“I…she felt right,” he mumbled to himself. “I recognized her. I’ve known her for so long. We’ve been friends since I can remember. And then one day, there she was. And I knew…I just knew.”

“She couldn’t have lied about all of it, could she?” He asked brokenly. “Could she? I mean, I couldn’t be so wrong…I would have known.”

“I would have known?” he faltered, his voice lacking conviction and strength.

Tears filling her eyes, Diane gathered Max in her arms, as he turned bent and pressed his face into her neck.

“Mom?”

“Shh baby,”

“It hurts…” and Diane’s hand trembled as she stroked her hand over his shoulders.

Wracked with anger and frustration, Phillip turned around and looked straight into Riverdog’s eyes.

“Can you help him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Look,” Phillip swiped a hand through his hair, “I don’t know how or why you know any of these things, and I don’t care. I just need you to tell me how to help him.”

“I…”

“Look at them for God’s sake,” Phillip nearly shouted, his face flushing red. “I don’t know what to do. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Anything.”

Riverdog looked into a father’s face and saw all the anxiety and anger and helplessness in the world. It was an untenable situation that they found themselves in. He had told them all he knew, from his encounter with the traveler, there was nothing else.

Except…

“I do not know if this will help,”

“We’ll do it. Whatever it is,” Phillip interrupted.

Riverdog looked at him again and appreciated what he saw. Phillip Evans was a strong and honorable man. But more importantly, he was a good father.

And he hated to fail good people. But he had to try.

“In our community, when young men and women come of age, they experience a self-seeing ritual,” aware of Phillip’s confusion Riverdog hurried through his explanation. “They look inside themselves. Search the truth within. It helps them gain a better understanding of themselves. Maybe this will help Max find the truth.”

“Rediscover himself.”

The three adults in the room looked at each other. It was this meditation thing or nothing. But what could it possibly do? Max was already so lost and confused, how could he focus – and what would he focus on.

“I’ll do it.”

Two sets of eyes swung where Max was disentangling himself from Diane’s embrace.

“It’s this or nothing, so I’ll do it.”

“Max?”

Eyes softening as he looked at his mother’s concerned face. “It’s ok mom. I have to know how I,” he stumbled, then swallowed, “made such a big mistake.”

Pressing a quick kiss on Diane’s forehead, and exchanging a glance with Phillip he followed the old Indian into his study.

“Get comfortable this might take a while.”

Waiting a beat, Max nodded then stretched himself out on the couch.

“There isn’t anything I can help you with. No magic, hocus pocus,” a small smile creased Riverdog's face.

“Don’t let your thoughts wander and just focus all your energy and concentration on what you want to know. On what is the truth about you.”

“Ok,” Max replied with a dry throat.

Silently Riverdog closed the blinds, whispered, “Good luck,” before pulling the door shut behind him.

And then, in the dark cool room, all that remained was Max and his swirling thoughts.

********************

Michael rubbed his eyes harder, and re-focused on the sight before him.

There, right in front of him, trapped in the oddly transparent yet plum and blue swirling sphere was Isabelle.

He opened his mouth then shut it. What was he going to say to her? Could she even hear him?

Shaking his head free of conflicting thoughts he called out: “Isabelle.”

“Isabelle wake up.”

No response.

“Izzy its Michael, wake up.”

She moaned, and he heard a faint, “No! No, stop it.”

Isabelle twitched where she lay, and her voice grew louder, harsher.

“No, leave him alone! No! No!”

She sat up abruptly, like a marionette on strings. Her eyes flashing with some unidentifiable emotion, she screamed, “I’ll kill you, Tess! STOP IT! Leave him alone!”

Her violent shriek rebounded off the sphere’s walls its force almost making Michael fall. The cage glowed malevolently for a second before it flickered, shifted. It shrunk, and became smaller.

“Stop hurting him! Stop it!”

The more she shouted and rattled blindly, the more opaque the outer walls became and the cage's circumference receded. Unknown to Isabelle her energy fed into the sphere, and in front of Michael’s horrified eyes, it grew smaller and smaller, tighter and tighter.

Isabelle was slowly killing herself.

“Max! No….Alex!”

Thinking quickly, Michael pressed his palms into the sphere’s surface and tried to push through. When it held firm, he changed tactics, gentled his hold while trailing his fingers across it.

“Izzy, calm down.”

He kept crooning her name under his breath, making sure not to excite more energy, and walked around the sphere, until he saw it -- a slight aberration in the texture, a very faint discoloration. Easing more of his weight against the still walls, he soothed, “Shh, Izzy. I’m here. It will be ok. We’ll get you out of here in no time. Just relax.”

For a moment, it looked like he was getting through, if not his words then at least the cool stream of calmness he was thinking her way.

“That’s it. Just relax.”

In the stillness of the cage, he saw her shudder and blink in awareness.

“Mi…”

“Shh, just trust me. Can you hear me? Nod once if you can.”

Isabelle nodded.

“Great. Now I want you to relax. Don’t talk. Conserve your strength. We don’t know who might be listening. Ok?”

She nodded again, blinking her eyes frantically.

“Now, I’m going to create a space in the wall, and I want you to ease in from the other side. Ok?”

She blinked and her eyes filled with tears.

"I want you to hold on to me when I get through. Don't let go. No matter what happens."

Biting down on the spurt of cold fury the surged through him, Michael closed his eyes. He wouldn’t think about the despair and pain in her voice. He wouldn’t think about how long she’d been imprisoned in her own mind, and how much she’d hurt.

Now was not the time to think about hacking Tess into little pieces.

He realized his mistake at once. The orb darkened and piercing cold bit into his body where it was pressed against its walls. Inside, Isabelle fell down and then flickered like an insubstantial shadow.

Cursing internally, he blew a stream of air through his nose. He could do this. There was no other choice. He was going to be calm like a block of ice.

Ice. Think ice.

Cold, cool, numbing ice.

Bit by bit he unclenched his muscles and opened his eyes. Locking his eyes on Isabelle’s pale and strained face, he spoke gently, hypnotically, “It's ok, Izzy. Now, I want you to pull in all your energy. Pull it in through your skin. It’s seeping in through your fingertips and your toes. Every single time you breathe it’s entering your body. It's dissolving in you, becoming a part of you.”

A long moment passed, then another. And another. She took in a shuddering breath and just for a second the sphere lightened and the walls eased back.

Fighting to keep the grin from breaking out, he pushed his fingers through the wall – not solid anymore, it felt like thick jelly. Inch by painful inch, his fingers wiggled through the thick mass, until he was in touching distance.

Now came the hard part.

Despite Isabelle’s tenuous calmness she’d managed to collect her energy, and all that remained separating them was Tess’ residual power. The way he figured it, as soon as he came in contact with Isabelle, Tess’ energy would react in one of two ways.

Option 1 – it would rear forward and try to separate them. That could get ugly. Really, really ugly.

Option 2 – it would retreat and that would give them the one split-second to latch onto it and follow it back to the source and then….well, if Michael had his say then…BAM!

No more Tess.

Except, it would never be as easy as all that. Any number of things could go wrong:

The cords to their bodies could snap, and they’d be lost forever.

Isabelle was very weak and there was no saying when she’d lose it.

Max was still out there, still lost.

Tess was stronger psychically than they were.

But…but despite all that he wanted the bitch to burn. From the inside out. He would incinerate her nerve-endings and feed her – her own, his and Isabelle’s -- energy until she exploded like a pressure-cooker. After that he would take her pieces and blast them into ash.

Oh yes, he’d roast her on a spit. Char broiled.

With that simmering thought, Michael lunged for Isabelle’s hand...

********************

And Max felt Tess’ energy ripple and yanked him back with it.

A minute ago, he had been retracing their connection, when he’d noticed how it wasn’t smooth or streamlined. Its edges blurred, like a poor copy of an original. Dread clutched his gut, as he peered at it closely.

His mother had been right. He’d been played for a fool. His desperation for Her had made him betray everyone…including Her.

Oh God, what had he done!

The proof of his betrayal was right there in front of him. Grafted onto the authentic landscape of his mind, was his connection to Tess. Its sinuous lines mocked him, as did the clear indication that it was out of place, it didn’t mesh.

Tess’ energy was all wrong. It was dark and corroding the surface of what had been the purest truest thing in his life before he’d destroyed it.

Idiot. Fool. Imbecile.

Enraged, Max tugged at the connection with all his might, when Tess’ energy rippled and the next minute he was wrenched out of his body, flying through bright sparks of nerves and synaptic flashes. He tried to slow down, but the inexorable tide pulled him along mercilessly.

If he’d looked behind, he would have seen the amber cord binding his energy to his corporeal self glowing gold. But he didn't.

Whatever had istigated the energy backlash was over so fast, that he almost didn’t catch what happened. He felt the faint familiar tug when Michael and Isabelle were around. He sensed more than saw Michael glow a violent red. He acquiesced to Michael’s demand before he even knew what he was agreeing to.

Red, plum and golden cords twined, separate yet together like braids in a rope. Michael wielded their energy like the god of war that he was and seared through Tess’ consciousness. Power poured through her veins like blood, blistering them in its wake. It scorched her nerves and synapses, crowding her, pushing her, until she was expelled from her body like a geyser erupting from the ground.

Systematically and mercilessly, Michael hounded her remains to her erratically beating heart. He silenced her whimpers of pain, and pounded everything that they were into her.

The bitch wanted energy - he'd give it to her.

He melded their energy into her heartbeat, into every pulse of her being. Her body heated and heated and then like an incandescent candle, Tess Harding exploded into flames, scattering her ashes over Alex’s tortured body.

********************

(The Present)

“Somehow, before she…umm…exploded Michael managed to snag the channel she’d used to enter Alex’s head. With a lot of help from both of them, I healed him. We didn’t have too much energy left, so we weren’t sure how much he would remember if anything. I…we tried to take away the worst of it.”

Max sighed wearily. He had aged ten years during this horrific tale.

“I didn’t know Alex,” he looked up for the first time to glance at Alex before lowering his eyes, “that you remembered. I’m so sorry. I…I’m just so sorry. Isabelle was a wreck afterwards. She had nightmares for months convinced that she’d killed you and me. She…it wasn’t such a good time for any of us.”

I stared at him in silence. So there it was, all of it. The hesitation and anxiety I’d gotten from him over the years was explained. Even with me, when he’d been sure, he had still been afraid.

Afraid that he had made another terrible mistake and that this time, he would destroy his family for sure.

It explained his anger when I’d wanted him to break in. More than anyone he knew what it felt like to be forced.

He still hadn’t looked at me.

I knew Alex was waiting for me to say something, but all I could think about was that he’d survived and if he hadn’t I would have been alone all my life.

But underneath my aching need to just go to him, and remove this arbitrary distance between us, I was still caught by his response to Tess. He had loved her, maybe not as much as me, but loved her nonetheless. She was one of his people.

She was his destined mate.

A mate who lied to him and abused him – my mind warned. She wasn’t you. It was a mistake. He made a mistake.

But he’d kissed her.

He’d touched her.

Visions of physical intimacy swam through my head and I felt sick. I was irrationally angry with him, how could he have betrayed me. But I was angrier at myself, he’d come through hell and back and all I could focus on were a few insignificant details. The sour taste of jealousy made me sick.

How could I be so shallow? Why couldn’t I just put it aside and comfort him. Tell him that I loved him? What was wrong with me?

In an attempt to breach the yawning silence and ease the guilt and self-loathing etched in Max’s frame, Alex stuttered, “I didn’t remember much of it. I mean, I’d remember bits and pieces but they didn’t make any sense. All I knew was that there was something off with you.”

His voice grew stronger, “I used to get these dreams that I couldn’t remember when I woke up but then one day, I remembered.”

Alex shrugged, casting off bad memories, “I figured you didn’t want me to know, and I didn’t know how to bring it up without making you uncomfortable or seeming ungrateful so I figured, forget it.”

Max swallowed. “I’m sorry…”

“Don’t. It wasn’t your fault, man! She was a crazy bitch.”

I looked at Alex swiftly. He never said things like that.

“Listen to me Max, she was a psychotic crazy person, who wanted to kill me. If there was a choice between me and her, I say she’s better off dead. Let it go Max. She used you. She used Isabelle. She made you doubt each other and hurt each other in different ways. She lied to you. Look, you’re my good friend and I’m going to say this to you…it wasn’t your fault. She had it coming. If I could, I’d kill her myself…so snap out of it.”

There it was. Snap out of it.

Snap out of it.

Snap out of it.

Snap out of it.

The words echoed in my ears.

But Alex was already hugging Max and me before striding out.

"I'll see you guys later."

And there we were again together yet apart.

It took me a moment to realize that he wasn’t looking at me. He hadn’t looked at me throughout the story. And that was the last nudge I needed…whatever my issues with a dead woman and her intended position in his life, I wouldn’t let her stand in the way of what I’d been dreaming about my entire life.

“Max,”

“I’m so sorry Liz. I didn’t know she wasn’t you. I didn’t know.”

He looked up at me, and my breath caught in my throat, at the sight of his wet luminous eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

Instinct had me moving before I’d even thought about it. Cupping his face in my hands, the way I’d felt him touch me always, I looked into his eyes and said, “Oh baby, it wasn’t your fault. You told me that we wouldn’t lose each other over this Max, and I’m not going to let a ghost stand in the way of my happiness.”

His expression lightened a little. “But…”

“Shh.” Standing on my tiptoes, I pressed my mouth to his firm jaw and sighed, “I came back because nana was sick but also because I was missing something in my life. Dreams are wonderful, but the reality of you is what I was searching for."

Looking into his eyes, I saw myself trapped in his amber depths and realised, this was home.

“I love you Max Evans.”